This week two years ago, I knew my marriage was over.

It hadn’t really hit me yet. We were taking a week to think about our marriage and where we wanted it to go. And as the day progressed, as the week lengthened, I became more and more aware of just how over my marriage really was. There was nothing left to salvage, and even if there were, it hit me that he wasn’t willing to help me salvage it. He had less than half-assed our marriage almost from its beginning, and the saving of us would require more work than he was capable of giving. In his mind, the issues of our relationship rested on my shoulders.

I tried to get him to go to marriage counseling. He refused. Outright. Every time.
I tried to get him to make friends, to hang out with other people his age so that he could learn from others. He accused me of alienating him from all of his friends, even though nothing was further from the truth.
I tried to get him to simply communicate the simplest of things to me. But the more I tried, the less he communicated. The more he pulled away.

Until eventually, he was making decisions that impacted us as a couple without even asking my opinion, or telling me what he was doing. I was “too unstable” to be trusted with the truth.

EMDR has been really fucking hard. For the first time in over seven years, I’m finally feeling just how tired my body is. I’m feeling the long term effects of what his abuse has done to my body, my mind, my spirit. I was in literal survival mode for years on end just trying to make it through each day, each week of my marriage, hoping it would be worth it. I stayed with him long after I knew I should leave because I couldn’t walk away from someone I had given so much of myself to, someone I had reduced myself for, because then who would I be? So I disconnected from my body as much as possible. I had panic attacks multiple times a week for two full years and thought it was normal because I have anxiety and depression. I now know that my body was desperately trying to tell me that something was wrong, that I needed out of the marriage that was slowly killing me, but I was too disconnected to see that.

Now, I’m reconnecting to my body and I am heartbroken over what I endured.

I can feel the sorrow, the fear, the hopelessness that I ignored because I wanted so badly to believe that my husband loved me. I am healing, but it is a slow process that is taking its own kind of toll. Repressed trauma wrecks havoc, and the healing from it is exhausting. But there is one shining light. One I didn’t expect to find and that has given me determination.

My marriage destroyed my mind, my body, my spirit, but my heart remains steadfast.

More than that, my heart remains soft, tender, full of love and gratitude and compassion both for myself and others. I am still here, still breathing, still healing, still moving because my heart has fueled every other part of me. I have not turned hard. I have not lost my propensity for love and kindness. There’s a fire that burns in my chest, a fire for life, for love, that has sustained me up to this point, and it will get me through the rest of this healing.

I am resilient, but in that resilience, I am also full of love. And I am learning to be soft, rather than tough; strong, rather than rough.

This week is going to be hard to get through, just like it was two years ago, but now I know myself so much more than I did then.

Now, I’m in a better place, with a better partner, surrounded by the best friends and the best support system I could ever ask for.

Now, I know how to heal from the pain.